Trail and error
by TrashMonkey
Summary: Uub takes a stroll down memory lane and reveals his feelings and thoughts about a past childhood event. Sometimes being extraordinary is a nuisance.


Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue, save the whales ;)

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Is it just me, or does fate really enjoy turning me into its cabana boy? I mean, a person can only take so many blows before he gets feed up, or, you know, goes insane. Which is really just one giant bother if you think about it. Who honestly has the time to go insane anymore? Between the training and evil-doers and Kami knows what else, I barley have enough time left over to sleep.

Things were going great in my life up until the first nine moths, then I was, well you know, born. Then it just went down hill from there. I was _way_ to strong for my age, I could do chores that required at the very least three grown men to do, and I usually did it with one arm. Dig a well? No sweat. Push this boulder out of the way? Easy. But I soon learned the down side of these…extraordinary "gifts"

The down side was not only did I emasculate almost every man in our village, but I was different, and that roughly translates out in human psychology as freakish, weird, and most of all, hated. Different equals bad. Or so I leaned.

Now children will always be children, but I hadn't just offended the children with my uniqueness. No, I had gone and done the un-thinkable by accident. I went and did a man's job.

In my defense the poor guy had looked like he was about to collapse, and truthfully I though it was my duty to help. So I did. Boy, was I stupid.

The village man, Ponah, or Prino, or something like that, had been plowing through a filed with the plough itself wedged onto his shoulders. He was dirt poor, like the rest of us, and couldn't afford an ox to till the land for him. So he was doing it himself. I was at the time carrying 2 full buckets of water back from the well, the one I dug, and heading back to my family's hut when I spotted him.

Now, this is the point in my life where things started to go sour. Because after the village kids found out how strong I was they would taunt me and whisper behind my back, and scatter whenever they spotted me coming. But when the adults stated to hassle me… that was just one step to far. But back to my story.

I was lazily making my way, minding my own business when I heard a grunt coming from my left. I turned, and low and behold I saw this scrawny man trying to heave this huge ox plough on his shoulders through a particularly tough patch of dirt.

My thoughts were as followed:

_Wow that looks like hard work; bet I could help._

_I should help out, he is a villager after all, and we need to stick together! (I was so young and ignorant)_

_I have to be quick though, Mama wants me back before dinner starts._

_I wonder how many times I blink in a day-…Gah! Stay focused!_

So I turned towards the farmer at the edge of his field and carefully set down the buckets of water on the dirt and headed over. The man in question looked up from his laborious work and blinked down at the small, 4'1 midget child tapping at his leg.

"Yes? What is it that you want?" He said with annoyance. But I ignored him and went on; my first mistake. "I was wondering if perhaps you needed some help with that plough." I asked in my meek, 'I'm-just-a-poor-little-boy voice'. This earned me a strange look, which was followed by a quick glance at my painfully thin body.

That man looked me right in the eye and asked, "Are you joking?"

He obviously had been living inside his hut for the past 8 years, because if the village gossip wasn't about the latest marriage then it was about me. Some amazing feet of strength and freakishness I had achieved which earned me odd glances at the market place. But then again, he had probably only –heard- about the demon child, not actually seen him/me. So it stood to reason that he had no idea who I was, which would explain why he didn't stop and stare or curse all future generations of my family.

Anyway, I looked right back up into those eyes and said the only thing which I could think of at the time. "Step aside."

That farmer coked one eyebrow and then…he started to laugh, long and loud and hard. Like I had just told him the meaning to life was really Magic markers. He stopped laughing after a moment and then wiped a tear away from his eye. He looked at me once more before receding into giggles. You can imagine how frustrating it was.

FINALLY, he cleared his throat and looked up, trying to decide. I could almost see what the debate was inside his head.

Shoo kid away and get back to work, or sit back and have a good laugh while he tries to plow my field…

His amusement won out in the end.

"Alright big man, you take a try. And be quick about it." He said with a smile. Oh, I'd be quick alright. The man slid the plough over his head and let it drop heavily to the ground before going to stand near my water buckets on the side of the field. The plough itself was easily 80 or 90 pounds of leather, wood, and rope and most impotently the metal blade embedded into the ground which was making furrows in the dirt so the farmer could sow his seeds.

I casually glanced over at the man I was helping and saw him snickering to himself. _'Prepare to offer me your eternal gratitude,' _I thought smugly.

I bent down and grabbed one end of the plough and heaved it onto my right shoulder, and then I did the same to my left. I bounced it a few times to get the balance right before I took my first step, and then another. And before the man could blink and say 'Calcutta' I was jogging with his plough on my spindly shoulders dragging it through cracked and dry earth.

It was at this point that I realized the sun was almost setting…which knocked my biological clock back into action which screamed at me that I was going to be late for supper.

If there is one thing scarier then super evil bad-guys who want to rule or destroy the world…it's missing my mother's meals.

So I started to run fast…

Really fast.

It took me 1.5 minutes to plow that whole field before coming to a screeching halt by the rag-tag farmer. I remember panting and struggling to remove the plough as quickly as I could without snapping it in two.

When I had finally freed myself on the devil plough and its knotted rope I ran back over to my water buckets and heaved them onto my shoulders. I glanced up at the man, ready to receive my praise for aiding a fellow villager.

What I saw was the face of someone caught between amazement and utter jealousy.

He recovered after a moment and glared down at me. "You," he said accusingly "are not natural..." He then looked back out on the plowed field and spoke without looking at me "Get away from my field, and don't think to help me again."

I was shocked.

Then, before my mind could catch up with my feet, I was running. I ran past all the other fields and huts in my home village. Their brown mud walls blurring together while I ran to my dwelling at the very edge of the village. People were staring, but I couldn't stop and make myself care. Something had been in that man's voice when he told-- no, ordered me to leave. It was as if I had offended him in some unforgivable way. Like my very existence was a testament to how he had been to unable to plow his own field…

Yet an 8 year old boy could.

Not just any 8 year old mind you, one with extraordinary gifts.

I didn't care about slopping the water I was carrying, I didn't care if I tripped and fell. I could feel this lump growing inside my chest like a tumor, and I suddenly knew, just _knew_ that the hackling and the whispering was about to get much worse. Because its one thing to be strong and to do **your** chores. But it's a whole other story when you reduce someone else, especially a man, to looking feeble and weak.

By the time I got home, dinner was over and my mother was furious…

But I don't remember the scolding or the screaming or even the hunger, all I remember is the dreadful feeling swelling inside my heart, things were about to take a turn for the worst…and all I had wanted was to help.

I went to sleep that night in my little cot in the corner, squeezed between my brother's beds, thinking of all the terrible rumors the man might spread, or imagining the looks people would throw in my direction tomorrow.

"_A boy doing a man's job, has he no respect?"_

"_Just barging into someone's field and showing off like that, who does he think he is? Hmm?"_

"_Glad he's not my son"_

I sniffled and curled tighter into the fetal position and slowly let sleep wrap its warm finger around my mind…

'_One day, I'm going to get outta this place, and maybe I'll build my own village! Just for people with amazing talents and no normal people allowed…' _I drifted off to sleep with the tiniest smile on my face, and the faintest glimmer of hope in my mind. Little did I know that the day where I would find people with gifts just as amazing and powerful as mine, was fast approaching.


End file.
